Thousands shared this 'perfect' story about a man confronting a Muslim woman on a bus – but is it true?

A Facebook post about an encounter on a bus in Wales has gone viral this week, being shared more than 21,000 times in a little over 24 hours.

It was posted by music promoter Tom Bradbury, who wrote: “The most perfect thing I have ever seen just happened on the replacement train bus service between Newport and Cwmbran: White man sat in front of a mother and her son. Mother was wearing a niqab.

"After about five minutes of the mother talking to her son in another language the man, for whatever reason, feels the need to tell the woman 'When you're in the UK you should really be speaking English'.

"At which point, an old woman in front of him turns around and says, 'She's in Wales. And she's speaking Welsh'.

"Perfect."

His story proved immensely popular, and has been reported on by the Times, the BBC and the Huffington Post among others.

However, many observers are now questioning whether the story is too good to be true.

Several people have pointed out that the story bears a remarkable similarity to another story that has apparently been doing the rounds for years. Here's one version of it: